This invention relates to shorthand machines, and in particular to a system for electrically advancing the platen of a shorthand machine.
Shorthand machines are commonly used in reporting conferences, court hearings and the like, and in most situations where it is desired to record the spoken word in a visual form. Shorthand machines manufactured by the assignee of the present invention have operated successfully and efficiently for many decades.
The common shorthand machine has a keyboard of 22 phonetically-related characters which, to the skilled operator, provides all combinations necessary to record words and numbers. The record produced by the machine may be a paper tape on which the phonetic characters are printed, as generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,319,273 which was assigned to the predecessor of the assignee of the present invention, or may be recorded on a magnetic medium, as set forth in greater detail in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,557,927 and 4,205,351, also assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
To record a word or parts of a word in a prior art shorthand machine, the machine operator presses an appropriate combination of the keys and the machine mechanically prints the characters simultaneously on a paper tape or, in the case of electric recordation, combinations of electrical pulses are recorded on a magnetic tape. In either case, the magnetic or paper tape is advanced a specific interval before recordation of each succeeding combination of keys pressed by the machine operator.
When a paper tape record is employed, the platen is advanced by the pressure of the operator's fingers upon the keys of the machine. In other words, the platen is mechanically advanced by the operator. During long periods of dictation, the operator often becomes fatigued and mechanical operation of the machine becomes burdensome, raising the possibility that the operator, when fatigued, may improperly record the spoken proceedings.
For the purposes of this description, the following terms are used and are given their intended meaning as understood in the art:
The term "stroke" refers to the act of an operator engaging the keys of the shorthand machine with sufficient force to impress a symbol or character on the paper tape, and/or to produce an electrical output representing the symbol. The stroke may be engagement of a single key, or any number of the keys, with the release of the last engaged key completing the stroke. A series of strokes is recorded sequentially on the paper tape or the magnetic medium.
The terms "symbol" and/or "character" mean any representation of a word construction including, but not limited to, letters of the alphabet and numerals.
The terms "word" or "phonetic words" means a particular combination of the characters of the shorthand machine which may form all or part of the phonetic representation of a spoken word.